has ferved, feels himself to be the natural object of their love and gratitude, and, by fympathy with them, of the

approbation of all mankind.

esteem and

And when he looks backward, to the motive from which he acted, and surveys it in the light in which the indifferent spectator will furvey it, he ftill continues to enter into it, and applauds himself by fympathy with the approbation of this fuppofed impartial judge. In both these points of view his own conduct appears to him every way agreeable." His mind, at the thought of it, is filled with cheerfulness, ferenity, and composure. He is in friendship and harmony with all mankind, and looks upon his fellow-creatures with confidence, and benevolent fatiffaction, fecure that he has rendered himfelf worthy of their moft favourable regards. In the combination of all thefe fentiments confifts the consciousness of merit, or of deferved reward.

СНАР. III.

Of the utility of this conflitution of Nature.

IT

is thus that man, who can fubfift only in fociety, was fitted by nature to that fituation for which he was made. All the members of human fociety stand in need of each other's affiftance, and are likewise expofed to mutual injuries. Where the neceffary affiftance is reciprocally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship, and esteem, the fociety flourishes and is happy. All the different members of it are bound together by the agreeable bands of love and affection, and are, as it were, drawn to one common centre of mutual good offices.

But though the neceffary affiftance should not be afforded from fuch generous and difinterested motives, though among the dif

ferent members of the fociety there fhould be no mutual love and affection, the fociety, though less happy and agreeable, will not neceffarily be diffolved. Society may subfift among different men, as among different merchants, from a sense of its utility, without any mutual love or affection; and though no man in it should owe any obligation, or be bound in gratitude to any other, it may still be upheld by a mercenary exchange of good offices according to an agreed valuation.

Society, however, cannot fubfift among those who are at all times ready to hurt and injure one another. The moment that injury begins, the moment that mutual refentment and animofity take place, all the bands of it are broke afunder, and the dif ferent members of which it confifted are, às it were, diffipated and scattered abroad by the violence and oppofition of their discordant affections. If there is any fociety among robbers and murderers, they must at least, according to the trite obfervation, abstain from robbing and murdering one another.

ΙΟ

another. Beneficence, therefore, is lefs efsential to the existence of society than justice. Society may fubfift, though not in the most comfortable ftate, without beneficence: but the prevalence of injustice muft utterly destroy it.

Though Nature, therefore, exhorts mankind to acts of beneficence, by the pleasing consciousness of deferved reward, fhe has not thought it neceffary to guard and enforce the practice of it by the terrors of merited punishment in cafe it fhould be neglected. It is the ornament which embellishes, not the foundation which supports the building, and which it was, therefore, fufficient to recommend, but by no means neceffary to impofe. Juftice, on the contrary, is the main pillar that upholds the whole edifice. If it is removed, the great, the immenfe fabric of human fociety, that fabric which to raise and support seems in this world, if I may fay fo, to have been the peculiar and darling care of Nature, múst in a moment crumble into atoms.

In

order to enforce the observation of justice,

P 4

therefore,

therefore, Nature has implanted in the human breast that consciousness of ill-defert, thofe terrors of merited punishment which `attend upon its violation, as the great fafeguards of the affociation of mankind, to protect the weak, to curb the violent, and to chastise the guilty. Men, though naturally sympathetic, feel fo little for another, with whom they have no particular connexion, in comparison of what they feel for themselves; the mifery of one, who is merely their fellow-creature, is of fo little importance to them in comparison even of a fmall conveniency of their own; they have it so much in their power to hurt him, and may have fo many temptations to do fo, that if this principle did not ftand up within them in his defence, and overawe them into a refpect for his innocence, they would, like wild beafts, be at all times ready to fly upon him; and a man would enter an affembly of men as he enters a den of lions.

In

every part of the universe we observe means adjusted with the nicest artifice to

the